Calendars for the discerning

Whee, what a whirlwind trip that was! I'm already sinking into post-vacation melancholia and can't wait to start planning my 2005 holidays. For that I'll need a stylish calendar, preferably one that is divided into new collection, pre-sale and sale seasons.

Calendars are also great Xmas gifts for friends and relatives but make sure to go the extra step and highlight your birthday on the gift beforehand, and mark in monthly reminders to save for your birthday present while you're at it. If you're looking for a personal calendar that's beyond the usual cute critters photoshopped into pristine fluffiness or Celine Dion tenderly preparing a baby salad for her daily dose of Vitamin C and folic acid, then consider getting one of these to get you through 2005:

Celebrity Mugshots
They're rich, they're famous and they've hit rock bottom! Appropriately chosen for the cover is a mugshot of Robert Downey Jr who is the posterboy for drug possession - his mugshots alone could make a 365-day box calendar. Other favourites include Nick Nolte which was taken while he was guarding the autum corn harvest and Yasmine Bleeth whose looks were unable to survive the ravages of working with David Hasselhoff and Don Johnson. Unfortunately Macaulay Culkin's recent mugshot isn't included in this rogues' gallery because it's quite an intriguing smirk he has going on there, one that seems to say "at least I wasn't nabbed for trying to liberate the lobsters".

Cisa
CISA the Italian coffin company initially found it difficult to generate sales because the combination of a healthy Mediterranean diet and active agrarian lifestyle in its hometown meant that hardly anybody died. But once they started using busty leggy models to advertise their fashion line coffins, buying Italian sarcophagi became as sexy as buying Italian sportscars.

Things really took off when Cisa released their much coveted calendars which, now in their third year, are like the Sports Illustrated swimsuit calendars of the underworld. Are these calendars supposed to cater for randy morticians or horny hearse drivers? Who knows, who even cares - somewhere in there is a joke with the words stiff and wood in it, which I shall leave you to make amongst yourselves.